What the Dweller of the Vyborg Side Has Said about Translation

The pseudonym «Dweller of the Vyborg Side» has been written into the history of Russian Romanticism by P. A. Vyazemsky, who gave his programmatic pro-Romantic preface to A. S. Pushkin’s poem "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray" — a title, Conversation Between the Publisher and the Classic from the Vyborg Side or Basil Island (1824). Analysis of the only text published under this pseudonym, the critical article «On Translations», that appeared in three issues of Blagonamerenny magazine in 1822–1823, shows that it was by no means a programmatic attack of the «Classics» of N. A. Tsertelev type, aimed against «the new school of poetry», but a petty, imitative, self-contradictory statement authored presumably by B. M. Fyodorov and A. E. Izmaylov and made primarily in the interests of Blagonamerenny and the inner polemics within VOLRS (Free Society of Champions of Russian Literature).

Socrates as a ‘Radical’ Politician

In Plato’s early dialogues Socrates seems to make a contradictory statement about politics. In the Apology he denies his commitment to political activity in Athens, whereas in the Gorgias he declares that he is the only politician in his time, using the ‘true political craft’. How can we understand his prima facie contradictory statement? In this paper, I aim to answer this question by showing that Socrates is a ‘radical’ politician in democratic Athens, who keeps prompting each individual to care for the soul and the truth. For this aim, I first clarify usual ‘political’ activities in Athens in terms of the public-private dichotomy. Then, I elucidate the political meaning of Socrates’ philosophy in “the semi-public sphere” that he discovers for his politics between the public sphere (e.g., the Assembly and the courts) and the private sphere (e.g., the oikos). In the semi-public sphere, such as the Agora, Socrates helps his fellow citizens establish their true selves, independently of ‘the politics of reputation’. Finally, I conclude that Socrates’ statement about politics is not self-contradictory, although Plato has Socrates pointing out the important use of ‘the true rhetoric’ in the presence of many people.

Pragmatizmus és megkerülés, avagy hogyan sajátította ki Richard Rorty a dekonstrukciót?

Jacques Derrida and Richard Rorty are often seen as forming a philosophical kinship, on account of their shared skepticism about the metaphysical tradition and the hegemony of positivist reason. It is all the more confounding, therefore, that in Rorty’s readings of Derrida, we find a frequently recurring argument to the effect that Derrida had best withdraw from the critique of the metaphysical tradition. Metaphysical problems, Rorty explains, are obsolete, no longer relevant to the purposes of expedient inquiry, thus they ought to be circumvented rather than overcome. The statement is rather perplexing insofar as Rorty himself seems to be engaged in such critique throughout his oeuvre. In my paper, I attempt to explicate Rorty’s apparently contradictory statement on rhetorical rather than conceptual grounds. I argue that the contradiction gets resolved once we assume that introducing the notion of circumvention is a rhetorical ploy on Rorty’s part, which serves to dissociate Derrida from his (Rorty’s) own critical project, and thereby appropriate his position.

The Mosaic of Culture and Nature: Organization of Space in an Inhabited Cosmos

Henry David Thoreau remarked that he had traveled widely—in Concord, Massachusetts. An intentionally contradictory statement, it is nonetheless true if the landscape is composed of many interpenetrating biomes and cultural uses. Fields and forests, groves and gardens, towns and temples form the tesserae of a landscape mosaic embodying the interpenetration of culture and nature, and while such elements provide diversity, they can also, paradoxically, mold integrity. The integrity of nature, in the sense of the completeness of the ecosystem that is present in a place, invests that place with power and lays a claim on sentient beings. Mosaic landscapes have a higher degree of biological diversity than monocultures because they manifest ecotonality, and they are spiritual stimuli for the psyches of those who live within and travel through them. Maintaining the variety of elements within the mosaic, and preventing effacement by huge, land-altering projects where "culture" disregards nature, is a moral imperative. The arrangement of tesserae in a particular landscape mosaic must not be haphazard, but should make both cultural and natural sense, following the underlying geology, the paths of celestial events, and the places where myth and history have resonated, binding cultural meaning to the fabric of the land. Such a pattern leaves areas of varying habitats where biodiversity may flourish. In a future when humans will inhabit the Earth sustainably, the concept of the landscape mosaic may serve as an organizing principle.

Moral Conundrums in the Courtroom: Reflections on a Decade in the Culture of Pain

Charles Dickens began one of his many great works of literature with this seemingly paradoxical, self-contradictory statement. Reflecting on a jury verdict in Northern California in June of 2001, in the context of what has transpired during the decade of the 1990s with regard to the care of dying patients, observations in the genre of Dickens come readily to mind. In 1991, two of the most compelling books on the subject of pain, medicine, and society were published: Eric Cassell's The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine and David Morris's The Culture of Pain. Both works unflinchingly recognized and explored the implications of the vast clinical literature documenting the failure of modern medicine to respond compassionately and effectively to what had by then become an epidemic of undertreated pain.

The Modern Paradox of Christ's Lordship

To proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord over the world is to make a paradoxical statement. First, in the original sense of the word ‘paradox’, His lordship over the world is contrary to doxa, that is, received opinion, reason and experience. His sovereignty seems to the ordinary mind not less paradoxical than His mighty wonder of healing the man of the palsy which called forth the amazed exclamation: ‘We have seen strange things [paradoxa] today.’ We cannot see, neither can we prove the reality of His kingship. This is meant by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews: ‘Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. … But now we see not yet all things put under him.’ Then another sense of the word is suggested—though probably to non—Greeks only—by the New Testament meaning of the word doxa, glory—‘paradoxical’ being something that is contrary to glory—not simply devoid of it, but appearing as the very opposite of royal splendour and might, as weakness, helplessness, shame and mortality. Also in this second sense the lordship of Christ is highly paradoxical. The visions of the Apocalypse assign power and glory to the Lamb that was slain. And thirdly, in modern usage, the word ‘paradox’ means an apparently self-contradictory statement in which the truth is expressed by two contradictory but necessary propositions. In this sharpened sense of the paradox one would express the lordship of Christ only in terms of those features which indicate His lowly service, weakness, humiliation and shame.